Adding Frames in Photo Apps

This screen grab of a flower run though the photo app Snapseed shows some of the current 23 ‘frame’ options. The ‘frames’ all print out high quality, the ‘Frame Width’ is adjustable (top bar) and many frames flip to place the distinctive part of the frame at the top or bottom as indicated by the criss-cross arrows on the frame selection button (bottom bar). Even better, they have been slowly adding more – this old film look is new!Orange ‘Bird of Paradise’ flower run though the photo app Snapseed.A French rose framed in Snapseed.A spotted orchid framed in Snapseed (and also run through a few of its ‘looks’ such as ‘Grunge’)Pixlromatic has a hundred or more inventive frame options BUT the quality of the frames is poor, especially when printing the image..Detail showing the blurry edge of a pixlromatic frame.Some of Pixlromatic’s ‘frames’ print up better than others.This Pixlromatic frame has the look of torn white tissue framing this old-fashioned French rose. If I am truly in love with one of Pixlromatic’s frames I sometimes try to duplicate it in Photoshop – in this case literally tear some white tissue, scan at a high resolution and then frame.Photoshop Express also has ‘Frames’ and ‘Edges’ but seems limited compared to the others. It’s the only app to have old-fashioned matted images in a variety of wood frames – here’s hoping they can add some gilded and metal frames to their selection.While Stackables doesn’t actually have a ‘frame’ option you can make a frame of sorts by choosing an appropriate overlay. If I’m unsure what overlay to use to get a frame look I try out the ‘Formulas’ and when I find one I like I hit the ‘Wrench’ icon in the bottom right corner. Here I have selected Layer 11 which was the only overlay (left side) that had a ‘frame’ in it. This shows that it used the ‘Beryl Blue’ overlay, which can also be rotated and made more or less opaque, more or less saturated. I could try out a couple of other overlays (right side) such as ‘Poison Ivy’ or ‘Decay’. There is also an option to totally change the image by picking the ‘Blending’ option currently set to ‘Hard Light’ (bottom right).The last choice is to take an app that doesn’t really have a ‘Frame’ option and run it through one that does such as this Waterlogue watercolour put in a Snapseed frame. Snapseed and Stackables would be my main choices for framing items as both print high quality and have lots of ways to change the frame to suit that particular image.